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Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Joint Musings: The Sleeping Partner

The Sleeping Partner is the third book in Madeleine Robins' Sarah Tolerance mystery series (see my reviews of the first book, Point of Honour, and the second book,Petty Treason) set in an alternate Regency England in which Queen Charlotte rules as Regent (currently). I am a huge fan of this series because I love the way Robins has played so subtly with the Regency to bring attention to gender roles and sexual power in this historical period. I also love the series because Sarah Tolerance is awesome. She is in the perfect position to straddle all levels of society, from the cream of the Ton that comprise her clients all the way to the young boys that work menial jobs sweeping the streets.

In this outing, Sarah Tolerance is hired by a lady whose sister Evadne has gone missing. She's terrified for her sister's well-being though she's also quite frank about the fact that, now that her sister has been missing for several days, her future even if found safe is pretty dire. Sarah, being a Fallen Woman herself, immediately feels for the missing girl and sets out to find her, embroiling herself deep in a sordid family history that involves war profiteering, re-encountering her own lost family and meeting both Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley along the way (hey, it's an alternate history, so it's possible!). And all the while, she's struggling with figuring out her complicated feelings for her good friend Sir Walter Mandiff and trying to determine if her brothel-keeper Aunt Thea is going insane or just being odd. Sarah's a busy girl, but she's up to the challenge!

I read this book with my friend Sudha, whom I introduced to the series when I first started reading it. Sudha is the one who alerted me to the fact that a new book was out, and we were both excited to drop everything we were reading at the time to get cracking on this one. Below are our thoughts on the book.

Sudha:
I was in the process of cleaning out some of my bookshelves last month
when I came across my copy of A Point of Honour. I just quit what I was
doing and sat on the floor, re reading all about Miss Sarah Tolerance.
Of course I moved right on to Petty Treason, and upon finishing that, I
decided to put my mad Google skills to work to see if Ms. Robins found a
publishing home for the rest of the Sarah Tolerance series. I was so
happy to see that The Sleeping Partner was coming out so soon! It was
reading fate!

Aarti: I
really liked this one, too. Granted, it’s been at least two years since I
read the previous outings, but this was a much grittier and emotionally
charged book than I recall the other two being. We learned so much more
about Sarah, met some of her family, dealt with a possible mental
illness and confronted a seriously disturbing case. And through it all, Sarah Tolerance continued to be awesome.

It was also great to get Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley in this book. I loved those scenes,
and how the women didn’t think Sarah was a bad influence or a horrible
Fallen woman at all. They were so welcoming and interested in her story. I think she needs to hear that once in a while, and
who better to tell her than Mary Wollstonecraft?

Sudha: I
very much enjoyed this book. The Sleeping Partner has the perfect
cocktail of strong heroine, shadowy evildoers, and real life historical
references to keep the plot going. War profiteering at the expense of
the men on the front has been happening forever. I found it both
depressing and oddly reassuring that people were just as greedy and
ruthless back then as they are now. How nice!

Aarti: And
then there was the whole situation with Sarah’s aunt Thea and her
slowly slipping mind as a result of the stroke. I wonder where that
will go in future. I really like getting a glimpse (however fleeting)
into brothel life. I feel like Robins is very straight-forward and
honest in her portrayal of the period, showing all the grittiness and
all the glamor, instead of just one or the other, and I appreciate
that. It really makes London so much more real and the city itself is such a strong character. It was very Sherlock Holmes-esque the way Sarah used the street
kids as her spies, too, wasn’t it?

Sudha: Whenever
I read a novel that takes place in the Regency/Napoleonic wars era, I
cannot help but compare it to the works of Georgette Heyer. For this
book, I kept comparing the family relations in Heyer novels to the
family relations in The Sleeping Partner, especially the relationship
between Sarah and her brother, and Evadne and her father. The
protagonist Heyer families would certainly try to hush up any shadow of a
scandal, but they would also draw around their affected family member
and protect that person at all costs. In both the cases of Sarah and
Evadne, the family thought of them as disposable rather than as an
essential part of the family. I found that wholesale rejection of a
family member almost ridiculous. I then had to remind myself that Sarah
Tolerance lives in a fictional world and Ms. Robins can do what she
wants in it, but this plot point still strikes me as a bit hollow.

Aarti: That's a really good point. On a related note, I
didn’t like all the jabs that Sarah made against feminists or books by
feminists. I mean, seriously?! If women had more rights, then her
whole situation would not even be a situation. But she seems to totally
believe in this system that makes her anathema to society, to the point
that her own brother won’t acknowledge their relationship and she was unceremoniously disposed of by her famly. And somehow, Sarah thinks
that women who read books on women's rights and believe in their content are somehow really boring and stiff and dull when they are the ones that she would probably get along with very well.

Sudha: I
also was a little weirded out by Sarah’s condescending attitude towards
the feminist ideas of the day, and her clear acceptance of her status
of “Fallen.” Even though she is such a firebrand, she does not seem to
have much empathy for her fellow Fallen women who are sex workers. Never
mind that many of them are happy in their profession and take pride in
it (like her friend Maryann Touchwell); Sarah seems to paint all of the
prostitutes with the same tarred brush. She has clearly internalized the
culture of oppression in her world and I was quite disconcerted by it. I
wonder if this attitude of hers will change as the series progresses.

[Slight spoiler follows. Highlight to read]

Aarti: I think it will be interesting if the character of Evadne/Evie stays on in the series and evolves as well. I think she'd be a great foil to Sarah and really give Sarah reason to rethink her less forgiving opinions. I hope she plays a part in the series going forward!

Sudha: My
favorite part of this book was Evadne. So often, books portray rape
survivors as lost, unrecoverable, and facing a hopeless future. Evadne
is none of those things. She is traumatized and full of rage but the
reader still gets the sense that she will move on from this horrible
time of her life. She may not be married and have the traditional life
for a woman of that time, but she will live on and survive.

[End Spoilers]

Overall, a really great addition to a series that Sudha and I both enjoy tremendously. So looking forward to more Sarah Tolerance adventures, and hoping for continued evolution of the fascinating and wonderful cast of characters therein. I wish the series was around when I was a teenager- I'd have loved to have such a strong and confident woman as Sarah Tolerance to look up to.

Note: I received this book for free to review. I did not receive the first two books in the series for review, and Sudha paid for her copy of the book.

13 comments:

Where have I been that I haven't read these books yet? They have all the elements that I love, and the story sounds amazing! I need to get myself together and grab a copy of this first book. It sounds like this is just what I need right now! Your joint review was awesome, by the way! You really made me want to go out and get these right now!

This posting is a great reminder of why I love the book blogging community so much -- I never would have known about these books if it were not for this review, and they sound like something that I would totally enjoy!The joint review format is fun to read, and you both have provided a great feel for the tone of the books. Thanks so much -- I'm off to see if my library has the first one available (I tend to be sort of compulsive about having to read a series that is new to me in order).

Oh, how much fun does this look? I'd never heard of the series (I must have missed your first reviews). I'm looking forward to finding it and trying it, now. Mystery and alternate history = some of my favourite things.

I don't remember hearing about Sarah Tolerance either but I'm going to be reading them soon.

I like (at the moment) that she's internalized her culture - it's always a little off putting to have virtually a 21st century person placed into a historical novel. But then again, if they're really a product of their times, it's frustrating. Oh, the vagaries of readers.

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